CHAPTER ONE

THE WHISPERING VOICE

In the greatest city of the modern world, in the Metropolis of Guilt and Guile where Alias and Alibi ride in gum-shod limousines while Mary Smith of the pure heart walks the pavements with broken shoes there is a mansion so rich and so rare that it stands alone.

Turret and tower, green-bronze roof, Cararra-marbled portico and iron-grilled gates brought from Hyderabad, have made this mansion the show place and the Peri s paradise for those who parade the Avenue called Fifth, in an unending sash of fashion.

Out from this palace at the close of a winter s day, there flashed the tiny pulsations of voice-induced currents of electricity which reached the telephone-central, were plugged upon the proper underground paper-insulated wires and entered, even as the voice was speaking, the cloud-hung office of Detective Drew.

Triggy Drew, as he was called, was dark, stout and forty-one years of age to a month. He crooked his elbow, removed his cigar and pressed the telephone-rece